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Galleries and High-Line Views

RECLAIMED A view of 25th Street from 10th to 11th Avenue shows gallery space, a prominent West Chelsea feature.Credit
G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times

IF a Manhattan neighborhood ever had a history of being on the far side of the tracks, it would have been the western part of Chelsea at the turn of the last century.

For one thing, it clearly had so many of them — tracks, that is. Ninth Avenue clanged with the city’s first elevated railroad, and at-grade locomotives barreled lethally down “Death Avenue,” otherwise known as 11th. In addition, spur lines linked 12th Avenue’s hulking full-block warehouses, some with elevators large enough for entire train cars.

By the early 20th century, only a ragged mix of shanties, tenements and flophouses subsisted on these sooty, noisy thoroughfares. A century later, they were gone, replaced by car washes, art galleries and parking lots, though an element of seediness remained.

These days, some of those tracks are actually luring residents rather than scaring them off.

A railroad called the High Line ran on a rust-brown trestle just west of 10th Avenue across the neighborhood’s length. It’s in the process of being transformed into a milelong 4.8-acre park, complete with native grasses — flora not all that dissimilar to what’s sprouted there since the final train trip in 1980. The park’s first segment, from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street, is to open next fall.

Developers aren’t waiting. Over the last decade, large high-rises started going up in West Chelsea, and the pace picked up in 2005 with the city’s rezoning of about 15 blocks to encourage more residential construction. Many of these new buildings become available for occupancy this year.

Although their designs and finishes will most likely rival the city’s finest, it’s the High Line that’s turning out to be the deal closer.

“I have to say it was a huge factor,” said Deborah McCormick, who owns a penthouse in the Vesta, a year-old 24-unit building. Her apartment has three bedrooms, three and a half baths and 2,500 square feet; it cost $3.6 million and overlooks the site of the new park.

She and her husband, Michael, had also considered a unit in High Line 519, on nearby West 23rd Street, demurring only upon learning that its views of the park might ultimately be obscured.

Still, the McCormicks have bet heavily on West Chelsea’s reinvention. They own a one-bedroom at 555 West 23rd Street, which they sublet, as well as a loft in the nearby Spears Building, one of the neighborhood’s first conversions, which their son Austin calls home.

“Every time I arrive, there’s something new,” said Ms. McCormick, a businesswoman who spends half the year in Montecito, Calif. “It’s almost on the verge of changing too much.”

But many longtime residents see that change as good, given what they suffered through in the 1980s when the neighborhood was at its low point.

“At one time everybody on my block had either been mugged or had their house broken into,” said Joanne Downs, who owns a brick 1835 Greek Revival town house.

The four-story structure has three bedrooms, four baths and 3,200 square feet, including a separate top-floor apartment. Among its special features are wide-plank pine floors and six working fireplaces.

It cost $85,000 in 1971 but might sell for $4 million today, based on prevailing town house prices, said Ms. Downs, a retired nursing professor.

But she is puzzled by the appeal of the High Line; as its transformation continues, its overpasses still block westward views to the Hudson River, she said, echoing some of her neighbors, and the tall buildings rising alongside it have only worsened matters.

“It would have been nice to have torn it down, since it’s really sort of ugly,” Ms. Downs said. “I’m surprised that people want to live on it.”

What You’ll Find

West Chelsea’s redevelopment has proceeded in a patchwork manner. Some blocks, anchored by car dealerships and storage facilities, are still dark and quiet at night.

Others, like West 24th Street, now have rows of apartments and galleries, which through their large windows spill warm light onto the sidewalks.

The housing stock also presents sometimes stark contrasts. The Robert Fulton Houses, an 11-building project that sprawls between 16th and 19th Streets, brushes up against well-preserved Federal row houses, with dormered windows and shutters.

Narrow brownstones with intact cornices line 21st Street, off Ninth Avenue. They are set back behind ornate wrought-iron fences, with 10-foot-deep front yards, and lamps that seemed styled to the era of the poet Clement Clarke Moore, who lived on an estate in the neighborhood in the 1800s. He is best known for writing “A Visit From St. Nicholas” (a k a “The Night Before Christmas”).

Photo

Credit
The New York Times

Although West Chelsea’s newer residential towers are scattered, their scale suggests that they will have a considerable impact on the housing market.

Take the 26-story Caledonia on 17th Street, developed by the Related Companies, which has 191 condominiums, all sold, and 288 rentals. The Chelsea Modern on 18th Street, with its oddly beveled facade, will have 47 units when completed in May; purchases are proceeding apace, according to its sales office.

Then there is Loft25, on 25th Street, a conversion of a yellow-brick warehouse, with a glassy addition. Its 79 units are about 75 percent sold, according to its Web site.

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Other major projects include 245 10th Avenue, whose metallic facade and 19 one- and two-bedrooms will gaze upon the High Line, and Modern 23 on 23rd Street, with 15 floor-through condos, starting at 1,600 square feet.

But the aesthetic effect of the current boom will perhaps be most keenly felt on 19th Street, off 11th Avenue. There, a trio of well-known architects — Shigeru Ban, Annabelle Selldorf and Jean Nouvel — are adding more than 100 units to a block that already has a translucent office tower by Frank Gehry.

What You’ll Pay

From the 1930s to the 1990s, one of West Chelsea’s best-known symbols was London Terrace, a Depression-era brick structure, with 1,670 studios, one- and two-bedrooms, occupying a full block along 23rd Street. It has a landscaped courtyard, post office branch and five-lane indoor pool.

Co-ops are in the “Towers” section, where one-bedrooms start at $1 million, brokers said. The “Gardens” apartments are rentals, with one-bedrooms averaging $4,000 a month.

There are also co-ops on side streets, in 19th-century row houses converted from Nixon-era single-room-occupancy hotels. A floor-through one-bedroom on 21st Street, with 900 square feet and a terrace, is listed at $1.575 million.

Prices for new construction are averaging $1,500 a square foot — up to $2,000 at buildings like 200 11th Avenue, also designed by Ms. Selldorf, where most units have en suite garages. The building also commands a premium because of its far-western situation, which for now at least affords soaring views over a low-slung skyline, says Robert Browne, a senior vice president with the Corcoran Group.

“There’s a tremendous feeling of freedom,” he said, “because the skyline is not congested.”

The Schools

The public schools have struggled, though there are signs of a turnaround.

Elementary schools include Public School 11, the William T. Harris School, which teaches prekindergarten through Grade 5 on 21st Street. In the last school year, 72 percent of fourth-graders met or exceeded standards on the English state proficiency exams, while 81 percent did so on math.

Citywide, 56 percent of fourth-graders met standards in English and 74 percent in math.

For middle school, there is the New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies on 17th Street, which offers foreign language classes starting in sixth grade. Enrollment is about 520.

The Bayard Rustin Educational Complex, a high school at 351 West 18th Street with about 1,800 students, was for years plagued by violence and poor attendance, so in 2006 it reorganized into divisions focusing on writing, art, math and business.

Last year, attendance was 79 percent, versus 89 percent citywide. On the 2007 SAT, students scored 378 in reading, 418 in math and 361 in writing; state averages that year were 502, 515 and 494.

What to Do

More green space will come with Chelsea Cove, a 7.5-acre park that will fan out between Piers 62 and 64, and whose first section opens next fall, says Bob Trentlyon, a neighborhood activist long involved in the park project.

Another oasis is the Oxford-inspired quad of the General Theological Seminary, which recently reduced the size of a planned 17-story residential tower to 7 stories under intense public pressure.

West Chelsea’s blocks aren’t exactly crammed with trendy restaurants, but there are dependable options for a postgallery crawl, like the Red Cat, where the seared duck breast costs $27. There are also restaurant options inside the porthole-lined Maritime Hotel.

The neighborhood is underserved by subways, with the closest line, the A-C-E, hugging its eastern edge, Eighth Avenue. Those alighting at West 14th or West 23rd Streets face a solid 10-minute walk to 11th Avenue.

Buses are more available. The No. 23 runs along on 23rd Street, while the 11 circles between Ninth and 10th Avenues. The No. 14D loops from 14th to 18th Street before heading east.

The History

To honor West Chelsea’s industrial past, Edward Kirkland, a 45-year resident, has asked the city to bestow landmark status on a handful of buildings from 10th Avenue to the West Side Highway, from 25th to 27th Streets.

One factory there published books, another repaired elevators and a third is where Reynolds Wrap was made, Mr. Kirkland said. Yet another housed the Tunnel, a railroad-themed dance club.